Her Cowboy Lawman

“Pete won!” Kyle said with youthful enthusiasm tinged by hero worship. “That’s so cool.”

“Actually, he hasn’t officially won yet. There’s more steer riding tomorrow.”

People began to stand up. The rodeo announcer thanked everyone for attending. Jax Stone didn’t move.

“You said he needed to learn how to jump. As in horses, yes?”

Bren nodded. “He should take some lessons from your neighbor Natalie Reynolds. She’s been working with a few of my kids.”

“I don’t understand,” Lauren said.

He turned to her, although that meant facing her again and being reminded of how young she was. “It teaches them how to center themselves on an animal’s back,” he explained. “Like a pendulum or a teeter-totter. The rider stays straight up and down while the horse—and later a steer or bull—rocks beneath them. Once a rider learns how to stay centered, the rest is easy.”

Jax was nodding. “Makes sense.”

“I don’t have to wear those riding tights, do I?”

“Kyle, really.” Lauren pursed her lips and shook her head. “I haven’t agreed for you to take lessons with Sheriff Connelly. I’m not even sure what he charges.”

“I’ve told you a hundred times, don’t worry about money,” her brother said.

“And I’ve told you I didn’t move out here to accept your charity. It’s bad enough I’m living in your housekeeper’s quarters.”

“I built that for you.”

“Yeah, for when I visited. Not permanently.”

“So what if you live there now?”

“I refuse to live with my brother.”

Lauren glanced in Bren’s direction, clearly embarrassed by their outburst. “Sorry,” she said. “You don’t need to hear our dirty laundry.”

Kyle stood up. “It’s not dirty laundry. It’s true. Ever since Dad died, Uncle Jax has wanted us to live with him, but you wouldn’t let us.”

“Kyle!”

“I have eyes and ears, Mom. I see how hard you’re struggling to finish school and take care of me and everything. But it doesn’t have to be like that. I want to live with Uncle Jax. You’re the one that’s making this hard.”

He turned and ran off. Lauren tried to grab his hand. She missed.

“I’ll go after him,” Jax said, standing, but he had an admonishing look on his face, too. “You should listen to your son, Lauren.”

They both watched them leave, and Bren could tell Lauren wished she could slip through the slats in the grandstand.

“Sorry,” she muttered.

“Don’t apologize. I understand.”

She met his gaze and her eyes asked the question Do you? and he found himself wondering why a pretty little thing like her had so much sadness in her eyes. He looked away from her, troubled by how easily her sorrow tugged at his heart. The grandstands were nearly empty now, just the two of them sitting there. They both watched as Jax caught up with his nephew, stopping him with a hand on his shoulder. He still wore his rodeo number and it flapped in a sudden breeze as he came to a stop. He didn’t know what Jax said to his nephew, but the boy’s shoulders slumped. He reached for his uncle’s hand and together they walked out of the grandstands together.

“A year ago I would never have thought my brother would warm up to my son like that.”

He glanced back at her, the same breeze kicking her brown hair across her face, Bren admitting once again how pretty she was. “What do you mean?”

She peeked down at her nails. “There was a time when the military was his whole life. And after that, when his business was all that mattered to him.”

“Darkhorse Tactical Solutions. DTS. I know.”

She smiled slightly. “Everyone knows everything about everyone in this town.”

He smiled, too. “I’m the local lawman. I make it my business to know who’s moved in and out.”

But she’d tuned him out, he could tell. She stared after her son with such a keen sense of longing it made his heart tighten in pity all over again.

“He begged me to move here.” She looked over at him. “We came here for a visit last year—before the house was finished—and it was all I could do to drag Kyle back to the Bay Area. He kept going on and on about his uncle Jax and his big ranch and how we could move to Via Del Caballo.”

“So you did.”

“We did, and to be honest, it’s a lot easier to make ends meet when you live in a small town, and it helps that my brother’s offered us free room and board.” She shifted, placing her elbows on her knees, resting her head in her palms. She looked so young then. Years ago she would have been exactly his type. No fake hair. Very little makeup. Easy smile. He’d been drawn to her the moment he’d spotted her standing there by the chutes.

“But I can’t stay there forever.” She straightened again. “The whole point of my going back to school was so that I could finish my degree and find a good job.”

“What do you do?”

“Nursing.” Her smile turned bashful. “I’ve always felt compelled to help others. Turns out it’s a family trait.”

“You could work for a local nursing home.”

She shook her head. “No. I need to make enough money to support me and my kid. That’s the whole point. I want a good life for him, the best. That’s only going to happen at a big hospital, which is why I’m going for a bachelor of science in nursing”

“So this is just temporary?”

She let her feet slide back to the ground. “Before the year’s out, I’ll have graduated and found a new job, and I don’t think Kyle likes the idea.”

He didn’t blame the kid. He hated the big cities. It was why he’d settled back down here once his military career had ended.

“So let him enjoy himself while he’s around,” he said. “Let him take some riding lessons and maybe get on a few more steers.”

Her eyes became serious. “I’ve seen what happens to bull riders. I’ve been an intern in an ER.”

“All the more reason to make sure he learns how to ride correctly. He could have been injured today coming off that close to the chutes. He needs to learn how to fall in addition to how to ride.”

Her brows lifted and he could tell she understood his point, but then she glanced toward where her son and Jax had disappeared It was almost as if he could sense the thoughts going on in her head, an inner battle of some sort. She must have arrived at a decision because she straightened suddenly, nodded, turned back to him. “So will you teach him?”

Would he?

Despite what he’d said earlier, he hadn’t planned on taking Kyle on as a student. His focus was high school rodeo. But he wasn’t proof against the imploring look on her face.

“I could maybe help him out a little bit.”

She reached for his hand. Bren glanced down, noting how refined her hands were against his own, how they were so white and his were dark. Her skin was soft and smooth. His was worn and calloused. Old and young. Worn and new.

“Thank you.”

When he looked back into her eyes, he suddenly wished he were in his twenties again. Now he’d be cradle-robbing—and he wasn’t about to do that. Not now. Not ever.

“No problem.”

But as they stood together, she flung her hair over her shoulder and the wind caught it and blew it around her face, and he realized she could be a serious distraction.

But it was an election year and small-town constituents had old-school values. They would frown on him dating a younger woman, especially a single mom. And that meant he’d have to keep things purely professional.

“How does this weekend sound?”

She looked up at him and heard her say, “Perfect,” but saw on her face that she thought it was anything but, and he knew how she felt, but for a whole other reason.

Chapter Three

There were times you did things for your kid that you didn’t really want to do. At least, that’s what Lauren thought as she drove toward Bren’s house later that week. She supposed she should be grateful Kyle wouldn’t be climbing aboard a half-crazed animal today. He would just be learning some of the basics, Bren had explained.

Lauren glanced at her son. He had the same look on his face as he did staring at a pile of birthday presents: eyes wide, shoulders taut, upper body leaning forward, the freckles on his face standing out like specks of dirt. She loved those freckles even though he got them from his dad. The rest of her son—hair, eyes, jaw—that was all her.

“Are we there yet?” he asked, completely oblivious to her study.

She almost laughed. “Looks like it.”

When she slowed down for Bren’s driveway, he rested a hand on the door frame, peering at Bren’s ranch house with anticipation in his eyes. She took in his home, too.

Nice place.

Being town sheriff must pay well. Of course, it was nothing compared to her brother’s ostentatious, obnoxiously huge, over-the-top mansion, but this was nice and in many ways more her style. Dark brown paint covered a single-story home that had a cute porch across the front and wide dormers poking out of the A-frame roofline. It was in the heart of town, other homes and corrals off in the distance making her think this was some sort of equestrian subdivision. All the homes in the area were evenly spaced apart, but while those homes featured white fencing, Bren’s was made out of some sort of metal piping that looked sturdy enough to house elephants. There were trucks parked out front, and standing outside near the front of them, Bren and a group of men. He waved as Lauren wedged herself into a parking spot.

Kyle shot out of his seat before she put her compact car in Park.

“Hey!”

But he was gone, his door slamming shut, Kyle going up to Bren and the men gathered there. She saw him laugh and pat Kyle’s head before pointing him somewhere. Her son waved and ran off, presumably to the back of the house and to the barn that she’d spotted out back.

Here goes.

She slipped out, smiling and shielding her eyes from the sun. “Should I follow him around?”

In answer, Bren beckoned her over, continuing his conversation with the three older cowboys. “Lauren, this is Andrew, Jim and George. They’re part of my campaign committee.”

Only then did she notice one of the trucks was black with a gold sheriff’s star on the side. Bren rested a hand on the hood, the black shirt he wore sporting the same image.

“Guys, Lauren’s new to the area,” he said.

“Nice to meet you,” said Andrew and Jim, smiling. Andrew was much older than Bren, his shoulders stooped, his blue eyes still bright. Jim seemed nearer in age. The two of them said, “Welcome,” at almost the same time.

“Thanks.”

George hadn’t taken his eyes off her, and then he turned to Bren, and there was something about the look on his face that Lauren didn’t like. Sort of a “well, well, well...what have we here?” He was older, too, but that didn’t stop him from winking at Bren just before saying, “Now I see why you agreed to help the son.”

She drew up sharply. Bren frowned. “Her kid’s why I’m helping. Get your mind out of the gutter, George.”

The man guffawed and Lauren sure hoped he was better at raising money than he was at handling social situations.

“I can just drop Kyle off if you want,” Lauren told Bren.

He shook his head. “No, don’t do that.”

She’d planned to leave, but something about the look in George’s eyes made her want to stay, even though a part of her, like, really super-duper wanted to escape.

“The boys are all around back, if you want to join them.”

“Thanks.” She smiled at the men. “Nice meeting you.”

Not you, she telegraphed to George, but he was too busy making faces at Bren. Old fool.

She walked off with her head held high, turning her attention to the boys surrounding her son. They stood in front of a barn that matched the house and they were like cloned images of each other. They all wore jeans and Western shirts—some solid, some stripped—and cowboy hats that were either black or tan. They all wore leather belts, too, some with sparkling new buckles, others without, and dusty old cowboy boots. Most were older than her son, but they seemed welcoming even as they stared at her curiously.

Yes, I’m the overprotective mom, she silently told them.

“Sorry about that,” Brennan said, coming to stand beside her.

“It’s okay,” she said over the sound of trucks starting up out front. “How’s the campaign going, by the way?”

“Pretty good,” he said. “Of course, you never know.” He set off toward the barn. She hung back. “Gather around, boys.” Bren motioned with a hand for the kids to join him inside the barn. “Last week we were working on finding our center. Anyone want to tell Kyle what that is?”

From town sheriff to bull-riding instructor. He handled the transition well.

One of the kids, a young teenager clearly going through puberty judging by the acne on his face, stepped forward. “It’s when you’re the middle and the bull spins around you.” The kid made bucking movements with his hand. “Or beneath you while you stay perfectly center.”

Bren smiled at the boy and Lauren noticed that he had a great smile. The kind that lit up his eyes and made the corners of them wrinkle and sparked the gold.

“That’s right.” That smile landed on her son and she found herself leaning against the back of the house. “Kyle, you need to work on that a little more. I noticed at the rodeo the other day that you came out of the chutes leaning forward. Anyone want to tell Kyle why you don’t do that?”

Another kid raised his hand. “Because once the bull starts moving, it’s hard to get back to center.”

“Exactly.”

Suddenly she was staring into those gorgeous eyes, the smile on his face slipping away as their gazes connected, making her wonder what was wrong. She hated the way he made her feel as if she should check her appearance in a mirror, so much so that she self-consciously scanned the fancy jeans she’d donned for the occasion, the kind with rhinestones on the pockets. She wore a blousy shirt. It concealed her figure and hid her curves. She’d even put her hair into pigtails, for some reason feeling the need to play down her looks around Bren, and yet the way his smile faded made her skin catch fire and wonder what she’d done wrong.

“Today we’re going to work on helping Kyle find his center, if that’s okay with you, Mom.”

A dozen eyes turned in her direction and her face grew even more red. “Of course.”

What was with her? The man just asked a question. So what if he didn’t act all friendly-like while he was teaching. No need to feel as if she’d been put on the witness stand and he was judge and jury.

“Who wants to work the controls today?”

A chorus of “Me! Me!” erupted from the kids. She looked around for these so-called controls, but there weren’t any that she could see. She understood in a second when four of the boys broke apart from the group and headed toward the ropes that suspended a barrel off the ground. It was some sort of...ride. One of them even went into an empty stall and pulled out a mat of some sort, a fabric-covered piece of foam her son would land upon.

Oh, dear goodness.

She took half a step forward before stopping herself. This was her problem, she admitted. This right here. This overwhelming need to protect Kyle all the time. Of course, that was a mother’s job—to keep her child safe from harm. But even she recognized she was a little out of control in that department. She freaked about him wearing a seat belt. She hated when he rode rides at carnivals. She refused to let him play in the ocean. And she wanted to vomit every time they went to the water park and she was forced to watch him slide into one of those little plastic tubes that spat him out on the other end. For some insane reason, she always worried he’d drop into some sort of water-ride black hole and never come out again.

Stupid. But it was because of him.

She didn’t want to think about him. About the man who’d stolen her heart and then broken it into a million pieces.

It’s in the past.

Because Kyle was her future and damned if she’d let Paul ruin her life all over again.

“Climb on aboard here, son.”

Her chin tipped up. She forced herself to lean back again, even crossed her arms and made herself watch, one of her pigtails sliding over a shoulder.

You should leave.

No. She wasn’t ready to do that yet. So she watched as Kyle raced up to the dark green barrel and Bren’s smile slid back on his face. She could tell the man loved her son’s enthusiasm and that he approved of his eagerness to learn. She wondered why he didn’t have any kids of his own. What had stopped a good-looking man—as in a seriously hot older man—from settling down and having children? What was his story? Then again, maybe there was a Mrs. Bren Connelly inside the house. Crap. She hadn’t even thought to ask.

“The first thing I want to see is how you take a wrap,” she heard him say to her son.

And so what if there was a Mrs. Connelly? It wasn’t as if she would ever consider dating the man. Yeah, he was handsome in an older-sexy-ranch-hand kind of way, but that wasn’t her type. She preferred the more bookish type of men, like the men she went to school with—the kind that didn’t like to deal with loaded guns. Besides, it was clear Bren didn’t like her. Every time their gazes connected, his smile faded. Not a big fan of hers, clearly.

“Where’d you learn how to do that?” he asked Kyle.

Kyle sat on the barrel even though she didn’t recall him climbing aboard. He smiled up at Bren in a way that flipped her stomach for another reason.

“I watched a video on YouTube,” he announced.

She forced herself to pay attention. He had, indeed, watched videos. Tons of them. That’s how she’d known he was serious about this whole steer-riding thing. It’d taken her weeks to admit to herself that nothing she said to dissuade him from the idea would work. It was her brother who’d stepped in and made her admit the truth. If she couldn’t keep the Bubble Wrap on him his whole life, she might as well embrace his enthusiasm. She needed to let him go. If she kept him off steers, he’d find something else to do, Jax had warned, and he might not ask her permission the next time. That more than anything had scared her. Jax was right. Too tight a rein might push him to bolt, and so here they were.

“In for a penny, in for a pound,” she muttered as Bren looked up and caught her eyes again. Something about the way he kept doing that prompted her to move forward, despite telling herself to stay back and give them both some space.

He didn’t like her, or he didn’t like something about her, and darned if she would let that keep her away.

And so she didn’t.

* * *

DON’T COME OVER. Don’t come over. Do not come over.

She pushed away from the back of the house.

Bren tried not to groan. And stare. And gawk.

Damn that George.

He’d been doing just fine at ignoring how gorgeous Lauren was right up until George made a fuss about her looks. Now he couldn’t get her looks off his mind, either. He even had to blink a few times to get her out of his head. What was he saying...?

“The only thing I’d like to see you change is maybe how tight you wrap the rope around your hand.” He glanced up and against his better judgment stared in her direction again. She was, indeed, headed this way.

Focus.

The bull rope—a prickly hemp tool that served as a bull rider’s lifeline—came back into focus. “YouTube can’t teach you the feel for how much pressure to use when you pull tight. It’s like this. Here.” Two of the boys stepped back as he went to work. “Do this.”

He pulled, getting the thing tight around Kyle’s hand. The boy’s eager eyes watched his every move and for a moment he forgot about the kid’s mother and how sexy she looked in her tight jeans and pigtails. Pigtails! They made her seem about twenty years younger than him—and served as a reminder of the age gap between them.

“I get it,” Kyle said. “Not so tight that my hand tingles.”

“Exactly.”

He caught a whiff of her, and she smelled as good as fresh waffles on a Sunday morning. Sweet and with just a hint of vanilla.

“So if you’re ready, I’m going to have the boys here start pulling on the ropes real good. It’s going to get kind of hard to stay on, but that’s okay, right, boys?”

The kids nodded, their faces eager, too. There was nothing they liked better than trying to knock each other off the barrel. He just hoped Lauren didn’t freak out. Once glance at her face told him all he needed to know about how much she liked the idea of her son riding that barrel.

She should find her son another hobby, he thought. That would make both their lives easier.

“Ready?”

Hazel eyes looked up at him with complete determination. The kid had more freckles than a spotted trout, but the resolve in his gaze made him seem older. For the first time Bren wondered if Kyle was the real deal, something he’d only ever seen rarely, a kid who really wanted it. He didn’t do it for the bulls or the glory but because he was drawn to it.

Like he himself had been once upon a time.

“Go!” he told his students.

One tugged down, another sideways, and one pulled a rope toward him. Poor Kyle didn’t know what hit him. One moment he sat in the middle of the barrel; the next he was flat on the safety mat.

“Kyle!” Lauren called.

“I’m fine, Mom.” Kyle sat up so quick Bren could tell he did so for his mother’s sake. It was his grin that told him that he wasn’t hurt. Not in the least. His eyes had lit up like an ocean sunrise. “Can I do it again?”

Bren pulled his gaze away from Lauren. At least she’d stopped short of bending down by her son’s side. She must have spotted the brief warning in Kyle’s eyes, the one that had clearly said, Don’t humiliate me, Mom.

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea.” Lauren glanced at Bren as if seeking his help to convince her son, but he shook his head.

“He needs to do it again. Had this been a real steer, he would have hurt himself coming off like that, especially since he’d be landing on hard ground.” He glanced down at Kyle, who already stood up. “You can’t put your arms out like that. Don’t try and land on your feet. Don’t stick a limb out in front of you. And most importantly, never land on your head.” He nodded toward the barrel. “Do it again.”

Lauren didn’t exactly gulp, but she did something close. Worried eyes caught his own and even though he told himself to keep things cool between them, he smiled. He just wanted to reassure her. To let her know nothing would happen, not on his watch, but seeing the way she relaxed, watching her take a deep breath and then ever so slightly smile back... It was his turn to gulp.

“Don’t forget to wrap it tighter.”

Kyle nodded absently as he climbed back on board.

“Look where you want to fall,” one of the other kids told him. Michael was his name. Good kid without a lick of talent, but he sure tried hard, and Bren appreciated the way he wanted to help.

“Curl into a ball if you come off headfirst,” said another one. Perry, his neighbor’s kid, who rode steers more because of the girls it attracted than any real love of the sport.

“But don’t stop trying,” Rhett advised.

It filled him with pride. This was why he did what he did. He might not ride bulls anymore. He might be all washed up. But he still knew things that he could pass on to kids who wanted to learn.

“Ready?” he asked Kyle when he was all settled. The boy nodded again, throwing his hand up in the air this time as if he rode a real bull, and Bren tried not to smile. He glanced at Rhett and nodded, and the chaos began all over again. Kyle tipped left, but darned if he didn’t correct himself this time. Same thing happened the other way, but he hung on, for a little while at least, because one of the kids jerked the rope so hard it looked like Kyle rode a trampoline. He heard Lauren gasp as her son flew right, hand hanging up on the rope for a moment, arms flailing as he landed on the right side of the mat with a whoosh. He’d listened, too, because he’d curled his arms up tight. Bren smiled because a lot of kids couldn’t think that fast. The adrenaline, the fear, it all got to them. Clearly Kyle could slow down his mind. He could think. And he loved it, because he smiled the whole time.